In order to get yourself ready to register as a player, coach, referee, or official, here's some handy information you need to know!
1. When does the season start and when does sign-on open?
Good news, the season starts in early October!
Ages 6-12 will start on Friday 9 October, 2020.
Ages 13-16 will start on Thursday 8 October, 2020.
Grand finals will be played at their usual time of the year, in early December, for all ages - Friday 4 December, 2020.
Sign-on is now open, so read on to find out how!
2. You now need a NRL Account in order to register!
We've transitioned to a brand new competition and registration management system called MySideline, which has been developed as part of the NRL and Touch Football Australia partnership. That means the old registration system, including your old username/email address and passwords no longer work!
To get registered to your club, you'll need to create your own NRL Account, which is completely free! If you already have a NRL Account then you don't need to create a new one, just log-into your account when prompted to at registration time.
If you don't already have an account, you can Sign Up via nrl.com/account. It's completely free!
If you are having trouble registering, contact your club (see point 4 below) and they'll be able to help you!
3. Want to know fees, training locations, uniform costs, etc.?
These depend on the club that you are registering to, so find your club contact information (see point 4 below) to get all of this information.
4. Need to contact or find your closest junior touch footy club?
Visit the Club Contacts & Training Locations page on our website to find your closest club, and get their contact details.
5. Register to your club via tjt.org.au/play
To make is as easy as possible for you to get into the right club, we've put all of the information and links on the Play Touch Football page of our website. If you, or anyone you know, needs to sign-on, go there first!
6. Are you Refereeing or Coaching?
You'll also need to register as a Coach (to your club) or a Referee (to the association). You can do all of this via the Play Touch Football page of our website.
7. Looking for an overview of the coming season?
Guess what, the Play Touch Football page of our website will also take you to our season overview, where you can see dates for each round of games throughout the season, as well as information about the finals series, age divisions, and competition-specific rules.
If you want to know anything about the upcoming season, that's the place to start!
8. What is the Super Round?
Due to our shorter season (thanks COVID-19 ????), we're going to play extra games on the last weekend of October to try and catch-up some of the rounds we would play in a "normal" year. This means that your team will play their regular games on Thursday 29 or Friday 30 October, and then play at least two games over the weekend.
We can't know exactly how many games you'll play yet, and we definitely can't know when each of those games will be played yet. Once we close team nominations (in mid-October) we'll be able to work all of this out and we'll be in touch with everyone as soon as we do! We suggest booking off the whole weekend on your calendar, just in case!
9. Why is the regular season only 9 weeks long this year?
Unfortunately because of COVID-19 we've had to reduce the length of our season to accommodate our adult touch football competitions, which were unfortunately suspended between March and July. By running our Super Round (above), we'll be able to catch up some of those rounds, but we won't know exactly how many until we can confirm team numbers in mid-October.
10. What about COVID-19?
At the moment, we are taking things one-week-at-a-time in regards to COVID-19. We are currently bound by many regulations, but none of them are currently stopping us from being able to run junior touch footy!
We don't know yet if we'll be able to have spectators at matches, or if there will be any limited placed on the number of people able to be at Queens Park, but we are doing our best to try and run a season that is "as normal as possible" under the conditions we have. This might mean changes as the season progresses, so we'll always do our best to keep you up-to-date as new information comes to hand!
In preparation for the season starting, expect the below restrictions to be in place. We hope to be able to remove some, but we will only do so on the advice of our governing bodies and state/federal health authorities.
- No spectators on/between fields - all spectators (if allowed at all) will need to sit on the outside of Queens Park, and not between any fields. This mean you'll likely be sitting under/around the trees that surround our venue.
- Social-distancing when not playing - touch football might require limited contact to play, but that doesn't mean our spectators can get all touchy-feely too! If you are watching a game, you'll only be able to sit in family groups, and must be at least 1.5m away from other groups.
- Check-in is a legal requirement - all visitors to Queens Park during competition hours (spectators, that includes you!) are required by law to check-in. This will be done digitally via your mobile phone, and is a very simply process that even our technophobic adults have managed! If you are involved (or watching) more than one game, you'll need to check-into each of them, even if you've already checked-in earlier in the afternoon. This means you may need to check-in several times a night, so we've made the process very simple for you! (We'll give you more information once we get closer to the start of competitions!).
- Arrive, Play, Leave - to make sure we don't have too many people at Queens Park, we require you to leave as soon as your game is completed. If you are involved in more games throughout the night, and it's not reasonable to leave in between, then you'll be able to stay, but must ensure you maintain proper social distancing.
- No sharing of water bottles - while most people have always brough their own water bottles, it is now a requirement that you do! If you forget, we'll be selling bottled water from the canteen!
- Referees can't borrow shirts or whistles - unfortunately we aren't able to loan out shirts and whistles to our referees, so if you are refereeing this season then you'll need to buy your own. Whistle's can be purchased from most sporting goods stores (ask for an ACME Thunderer 58.5), and shirts can be purchased from the official Touch Football Australia online store - touchfootball.shopdesq.com.
If the above points don't answer all of your questions, don't be afraid to contact your closest junior touch footy club and they'll be happy to help you out!